On the morning of the day of the fire, I am working, and I see Jacobs go into the corner to the place where he sits, and I get up from my machine and I say to my sister I got to discuss with him something about the stint he didn’t pay us right from last week, and he is at his little desk, calculating the pay packets to give out. He is angry with me when I tell him I think there is a baby, and he orders me to go back to sewing my sleeves and shut my mouth. Shut up, he tells me, shvayg shoyn! And he tells me again, I should shyavg shoyn my pisk, which is the word for an animal’s mouth, not the mouth of a human being. He repeats this, only louder, and one of the girls at the end of the row, Molly Roth, she died that day, she looks up like she heard what he said. Sha! He says to me like the way you hush a barking dog, even though I am not saying anything now, and I stand there without moving, and he takes from the desk one of my credit slips and holds it up to me so I see my name clear, and then he tears it up. This is the only way I get money, it is the only proof of the work I have done in the week. I say again to him, What am I supposed to do? And he takes up now one of my sister’s slips, and he shows me her name, and then he tears that one in half and drops the pieces on the floor. Hours of hard work that ruin her eyes are gone like that. I ask him to look at me, just look at me in the face like a man, and be a man, I tell him he should be mentshlekh and he says louder to me over the machine noise so a lot of girls hear him this time, he says, Zetsn zikh! I should sit down, and he takes another of my sister’s slips and he tears it into bits. So I go away from him, back to my machine, back to my sister, who has been watching. I tell her everything is okay, and I make up a story that I asked him for a raise and he got mad with me but that was all. Now comes Morris Jacobs with our pay packets, walking down the row. It is almost quitting time. He puts down both our packets and I take them together to put into my stocking to keep safe, so my sister can stay sewing to finish what she got to finish for the week.

Ida Brodsky, she died that day, she was a wonderful friend to my sister and me, she has made a cake for a surprise because of the engagement to Sam, because they have just a few days before said to everyone the secret that they will get married, they didn’t even get a ring yet, all they did was get a photograph in Union Square to celebrate when they decided, I was with them, and everybody who heard the news was so happy for them.